India's cows can save the earth by trying a new diet

NEW DELHI: A US scientist has found that feeding seaweed as a dietary supplement to cows dramatically reduces their emissions of methane gas. India's 305 million cattle population is the largest in the world in 2018 followed by that of Brazil (233 million) and China (97 million).

India can thus significantly reduce its carbon footprint -- which leads to global warming.

WHY: Methane in the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas (GHG), 28 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in its potential for global warming. About one eighth of all GHG emissions from India (1,728 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent) came from its cattle population in 2007.
HOW: Microbes in their stomach that help ferment and break down high-fibre food like grass and hay, produce gases that combine to form methane which the cattle perpetually burp and emit.
THE EXPERIMENT: A team headed by Ermias Kebreab, professor in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Califrnia-Davis, conducted a controlled experiment in which they tested the efficacy of one kind of marine macro-algae called "Asparagopsis" on 12 Holstein cows. In their experiment, the researchers blended dried seaweed with molasses to produce a meal that cows evidently found tasty. A device measured the methane in the exhaled breath as the cows ate. The three-month study reduced methane production by 58%.

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from Times of India https://ift.tt/2PQ2ShV